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Mozilla

Firefox Mobile

I am really glad to see the new Mozilla Mobile initiative. Mozilla 2 is a great time to undertake most of these changes. The thing that really sucks about developing for mobile devices is the browsers are pathetic at best (with the notable exception of the iPhone). Wireless speed is still an issue in some cases, but with 3G coming about, it’s not the biggest concern if you can manage to keep things slim. XUL on mobile will be very interesting. If done right, it would allow for client side applications that don’t suck, yet have the lowest barrier to entry (JS+XML = Easy). Not to mention you can target a bunch of devices with one download and code base. Don’t forget you’d still be able to do rather realistic debugging on your desktop.

Hopefully by the time this all comes around, data charges for mobile will drop significantly. The iPhone is still $60 for the cheapest plan. If you need more than 450 minutes of voice, you’ll be spending even more. While interest in the iPhone is high, between hardware and plan costs, I think it’s still to high to attract the masses. There’s still time. Firefox 3 isn’t even out yet. Mozilla 2 is still a little while away. I suspect these prices will be dropping as other providers try to compete with the iPhone. A price war is very likely.

One question remains: will it run on the gPhone?

6 replies on “Firefox Mobile”

Well, one could also try Opera Mobile (paid) or Opera Mini (free). Although the latter isn’t truly “a browser” (server preprocessing) it can run on almost every Java-enabled phone and gives decent experience (especially latest beta).
Anyway looking forward for Fx Mobile.

Agreed with lockoom. Using Opera Mobile is a much cheaper option than buying an iPhone. You get the whole web in your pocket. There is no before iPhone, and there is no after.

Opera Mini is even free, and you can use it on most phones, probably the one you already got. And the server preprocessing makes it quite cheap to surf the web. This is making my phone bill look like I pay much more to call home and say “sorry I’ll be late again” every day, than surfing the web on my phone every day to and from work on the bus.

Looking forward to see Fx on the phone too,
– ØØ –

“the browsers are pathetic at best (with the notable exception of the iPhone).”

You’ve obviously not used the webkit-based browser on the Nokia N95; it’s great!

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